91³ÉÈ˰涶Òô

Date:ÌýThursday October 10th 2024

Project:ÌýEastern Australian Waterbird Survey

Observers: Richard Kingsford (UNSW),ÌýChris Sanderson

Pilot:ÌýThomas Clark

Again, we headed off early in the morning after refuelling at Tibooburra and headed south to survey Band 5 which goes from here through to Armidale.Ìý

The first wetland system is sometimes very busy when full, just southeast of Tibooburra. There are up to 100 small swamps claypans and salt lakes here. When they have water, they're highly productive, with thousands of waterbirds. Today they were all dry.Ìý

Southeast of Tibooburra

We then flew past the Koonenberry hills which come out from nowhere, near Packsaddle.Ìý

Koonenberry Hills

All through here we just surveyed small farm dams along the way to the east. Most of these were pretty full, unlike large parts of Queensland.Ìý

Farm dam

The next major system we came to was the Paroo Overflow Lakes system. Perry Lake was dry but Poloko and Gilpoko Lakes had water, with hundreds of waterbirds.Ìý

Paroo Overflow Lakes

Surveying Poloko Lake, one of the Paroo Overflow Lakes.Ìý

But it was on Yantabangee Lake where we found the action. It was absolutely covered in waterbirds. There were probably up to ten thousand waterbirds, including Pink-eared Duck, Grey Teal, and various other fish-eating birds like cormorants and Pelicans. They were also hundreds of Black Swans.Ìý

We then went on to survey Mullawoolka Basin which was drying back but had hundreds of Pelicans. They were even Darters nesting. It also had big flocks of Eurasian Coot and Grey Teal.Ìý

Mullawoolka Basin with hundreds of Pelicans

From here we went north to Tonga Lake which was reasonably full but had very few waterbirds. For some reason this lake has lost a lot of its productivity that it had in the past. Probably had no more than 50 waterbirds. All the other lakes in this area were dry.Ìý

We then headed east along the way surveying a farm dam which amazingly had more than 100 Grey Teal. Ìý

Farm dam with Grey Teal

It was then on to the Darling River which we surveyed up to the northwest. It had its usual numbers of egrets, cormorants, Wood Ducks and Pelicans. We then refuelled at Bourke. Ìý

Taking off from Bourke after refuelling, we surveyed off-river storages and the Darling River, we then headed east, picking up a string of small farms along the way which had a few Grey Teal, Wood Duck and Pacific Black Duck.Ìý

Darling River and off-river storage

We then got to the northern end of the Macquarie Marshes. This magnificent wetland was flooding and had a great diversity of different waterbirds but not in great numbers. There were White Ibis, Yellow-billed Spoonbills, egrets and small flocks of Grey Teal and Wood Duck. We surveyed back and forth across this northern third which we do every year.Ìý

There were reasonably large flooded areas under the river red gums and in the red beds with lagoons scattered in between.Ìý

We then surveyed some off-river storages north of the Marshes and headed east, picking up and surveying farm dams and small swamps with water in them as we went. There were relatively few waterbirds, just a few flocks of Wood Ducks and Grey Teal.Ìý

It was then a run along the Namoi River and the cotton storage which is nearby. Some of these were half empty and so had large numbers of waterbirds feeding in the shallow water areas.Ìý

From there we flew over the hills to survey Split Rock Dam which had large numbers of Great-crested Grebes. I don't think I have seen such large flocks of these birds. There was also the usual complement of Pelicans and cormorants.

Following here, we surveyed a few farm dams and arrived at the end of the survey at Armidale for the night.

Split Rock Dam